2009 was a pretty epic year for social media, old  friends connected, businesses made money, and parents stalked their children. The two main social media culprit that contributed to this digital world domination are Facebook; a groundbreaking online community that exploded like a bomb( no pun intended considering my Nigerian heritage) after it opened it’s doors to everyone and scratched the only college students exclusivity rubbish and Twitter; the 140 character communication wizard that made money for tons of companies but somehow couldn’t make any for it’s self. The success of this digital age has been our ability to still maintain human elements as we share info, sell products and communicate with each other. In 2009 Facebook’s fan page option took of, small businesses, large corporation and various tv personalities used this as a medium to reach and connect with their fans all over the world promoting products/services and up coming episodes. Just in one year Facebook grew by a  staggering 350 million users, leaving it’s arch rivals myspace with a bunch of unsigned and depressed  emo bands.

Granted twitter has it’s fair share of shortcomings right now; the  stall in growth and the inability to monetize the damn thing. But nothing beats having a front row seat to a 140 character celebrity meltdown. Twitter has a large number of celebrity users, promoting albums , movies and actually making the world a better place. Alyssa Milano recently used  twitter to collect donations to help supply clean water to children in need, Drew Carey is donating 1 million dollars to cancer research as soon as he reaches his 1 million follower, and Tila Tequila plans to increase the population of footballers in prison. The micro blogging site also played it’s part in delivering news to millions,  from the numerous celebrity deaths to the balloon boy hoax that actually took their server down due to mass influx of tweets on how Falcon(balloon boy) and his parents should be thrown in a bottomless pit for keeping the whole U.S on edge for two hours,  and to the important; the Iran elections rigging scandal that the government refused to televise. Various journalist took to their phones and computers exposing the truth and sharing videos for the world to see.  Before the end of year Twitter was able to close a deal with search engine giants Google to incorporate real-time results from Twitter into web searches, because news breaks and travel through twitter as fast as a bottle of Jameson in an Irish bar.

What will these two social networking giants deliver on our digital platter this year? Well as the market slowly recovers, its been  rumored that Facebook could file for an IPO in 2010 and as for Twitter the future is still uncertain, as growth has recently stalled, but a business version of Twitter is in the works that could possibly change social media for business as we know it.